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Friends,
Here is this week’s newsletter in the usual format. I loved the top show pick Orthodox and I think many of you will too. I wouldn’t say I had a good time watching The Platform on the other hand, but I can’t stop thinking about it.
THE TOP TV SHOW OF THE WEEK
Unorthodox
New on Netflix today.
This excellent new miniseries is a drama that takes place in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family. Esty, a nineteen-year-old girl who is unhappy in her arranged marriage, escapes this community and travels from New York to Berlin in hopes of starting a new life.
Like all good realistic dramas, there are no truly bad people in Unorthodox. Everyone is trying to do what they think is right, which still makes for very complicated situations. Esty is played by Israeli actor Shira Haas and I know this word is overused but she really is a revelation.
📰 The New York Times: “Haas is a phenomenon, expressive and captivating. As Esty makes her way, drawn forward by little more than hope and an attraction to music, Haas makes you hear the unsounded symphonies in her head.”
📺 on Netflix everywhere; 🍅 rating: 100%
THE TOP MOVIE OF THE WEEK
The Platform
New on Netflix this month. In Spanish.
The Platform is the closest thing to Parasite released so far. This interesting Spanish movie is about 90% a science-fiction drama and 10% a horror movie. It’s an allegory set in a future where prisoners live in vertical cells, and each cell has to wait for the cell above it to eat to get food.
Depending on the floor where prisoners wake up, they might not get any food at all. This creates for disturbing situations that are hard to see as not representative of our modern societies.
📰 Variety: “Gaztelu-Urrutia's allegory is clear. What he's after, though, isn't as simple as eat the rich. He's curious about how the poor devour each other.”
📺 on Netflix almost everywhere; 🍅 rating: 82%
Readers’ top picks
Becoming Astrid on Amazon Prime is our readers’ favorite movie this week. It’s about the life of Swedish children book writer Astrid Lindgren.
Feel Good, a charming British-Canadian comedy show on Netflix, is our readers’ favorite TV show. It’s an LGBTQ+ love story that gets more serious as the episodes roll.
New titles worth your time
Ozark is back for a much-anticipated third season today. The show that stars Jason Bateman is about an unlikely accountant who becomes a high-profile money launderer for Mexican drug cartels.
The fifth season of Luther has been added to Amazon Prime. If you haven’t seen the show, I really recommend it. Idris Elba plays an unpredictable but dedicated detective is something between The Silence Of The Lambs and an understated version of a London Batman.
Great titles that will soon expire
Many classics are leaving Netflix this Tuesday, March 31st. The list includes the Brazilian Oscar winner City of God, the 1997 New York crime thriller Donnie Brasco with Al Pacino and Johnny Depp, both volumes of Kill Bill, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Citizenfour, the acclaimed Edward Snowden documentary leaves Netflix this Monday, March 30th. Also leaving the same day is the excellent British dark comedy Death at a Funeral.
Lastly, the excellent but little-known Brazilian action movie Elite Squad also leaves Amazon Prime Monday. It’s inspired by true accounts of the Rio de Janeiro special police force, starring Wagner Moura (Pablo Escobar in Narcos).
The Newsflash: the rise and fall and rise again of ad-supported streaming
Tubi was acquired by Fox for $440 million this week, marking a comeback for ad-supported streaming.
Crackle is a Netflix-style streaming service that allows you to watch movies for free. It was started in 2004, and in 2006 it was acquired by Sony for $65 million.
Netflix only started doing streaming in 2007, that’s three years after Crackle was founded and a year after it was acquired.
But there is still a chance that you might have never heard of Crackle. Even if it’s completely free.
After Crackle’s demise against Netflix, it seemed that ad-supported streaming was dead. Everyone moved to subscription-based streaming.
Fast forward to this week, Fox acquired a new ad-supported streaming service, Tubi, for $440 million.
And a study released just yesterday shows that now 76% of viewers are willing to watch ads for free streaming.
It might be that the problem was that there has never been a free platform as good as what we have right now, or it might just be that viewers are sick of spending money on ever-multiplying streaming services.
Regardless, $440 million is a lot of money to spend on content. Tubi, and maybe other emerging platforms like Pluto and IMDb TV, might start slowly making the subscription model obsolete.
That’s it for today, I hope there is something in there for you.
The next edition will be in your inbox on Friday, April 3rd.
Until then,
Bilal Zou, founder [bilal@agoodmovietowatch.com]
Carried with the support of the Creative Europe Program – MEDIA.
Correction: “All Roads Lead” was made in 2014.
Hi Bilal! I’ve seen SO many great docs, movies and tv shows thanks to your curation - thank you!
I came upon a crime documentary last night on Amazon Prime that I wanted to recommend to you: “All Roads Lead”. From events in 2005, doc produced in 2011. It’s like NOTHING I have ever seen. Huge event/twist about 3/4 though. Wait for it. Hope you like!
Janet